


There's a Fire Starting in my Heart

by QueenofCheese (Supertights)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adult Pidge | Katie Holt, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Diary References - Freeform, Dreams and Nightmares, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff and Humor, Future Fic, Gen, Keith Sighs a Lot - Freeform, Mild Horror - Freeform, Mild Language, Minor Allura/Kolivan (Voltron), Minor Keith/Lance (Voltron), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rating May Change, Repressed Memories, Sappy, Sleepy Cuddles, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Survival Horror, Warnings May Change, background m/m - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2018-12-16 10:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11826510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supertights/pseuds/QueenofCheese
Summary: Pidge has never seen Shiro as a viable option for a romantic partner but ever since the "space vodka" incident, that's changed. She begins to unpack feelings she never knew she had for Shiro just as crisis hits the Castle of Lions.





	1. Remedy

**Author's Note:**

> As indicated in tags, this fic is set quite a few years down the track and all characters are adults. I wish there were more fics where the characters are all adults.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge can't sleep and goes to the one person she knows for a fact sleeps less than she does for help.

Katie “Pidge” Holt paused outside Shiro’s sanctuary, a small library that Allura had given him personally on the last gift-giving eve. Gift-giving eve being a multi-species mash-up of Christmas, Hanukkah, that thing the Altean’s did which still sounded a little weird even to Pidge (and was more like a day long game of truth or dare that involved hide-and-seek, more kissing than should be allowable, and smashing goo cake in people’s faces as violently as possible which she could get right behind and did). Also Yule, Hogmanay, Kwanzaa, Newtonmas, and every other excuse to give a gift to another intelligent being.

Although in the first year the lines were severely tested when Lance gave Kaltenecker a large Santa hat made from an irreplaceable red shirt from Keith’s favourite Galra band. Lance and Keith had fought a little, with no real animosity but Shiro had gotten the two to kiss and make-up. Not literally. Well maybe literally but not in plain sight.

That first gift-giving even had been special, they’d all lost sight of why they were fighting after a series of losses and betrayals. All they needed was a reminder, that one tiny blue world they loved so much. Things led other other things which led to the inaugural hour long explanation of Santa Claus to Allura and Coran. Both of whom needed to know how a jolly fat Earth man could fly around the entire planet in one single night, towed behind enslaved reindeer and giving personalised gifts (or flammable fossil fuel) to everyone.

It was reindeer that gave them pause, a species first thought to be indigenous only to Earth but not according to Coran who swears there was a race of intelligent teleporting antlered bipedal aliens that could’ve done it easily with the right incentive. Namely eating small naughty children and coal in equal quantities.

Lance skated clear of further punishment due to everyone losing track of the original conversation until three days and many celebratory hot nunvill toddy's later.

Pidge shook her head, trying to remember why she’d come to Shiro’s retreat at two o’clock in the morning. Oh yeah.

She pressed her hand to the touch plate beside the door. It glowed a soft blue announcing her presence and a moment later the door opened. Inside, Shiro leaned back in a chair reading something from the larger castle library, that vast beautiful room she hadn’t expected to find, full of actual books. She’d thought everything in the castle was digital. Pidge knew the book in Shiro’s hands well, she’d read it in the first year aboard, years ago now, when she’d systematically read every single book in the castle.

His feet were balanced on the ornate desk parked between two tall bookcases full of volumes that maybe Coran had recommended to the Black Paladin but the Green Paladin knew were dry history.

She would find some of the more interesting memoirs from the original paladins, not least among them, King Alfor’s royal diaries, and Zarkon’s ghost written biography (a surprisingly readable piece of fiction if her gut was right about it).

Shiro looked at her over the book, a pair of glasses that he’d found at the Earth store in the space mall perched on the end of his nose, just below his scar. He had the sexy librarian look down and she swallowed hard. “Pidge? Shouldn’t you be in bed sleeping about now?” He pushed the glasses back up and glanced at a clock on the wall that gave the time for both Altean and Earth. Then looked back at her.

The years had been oddly kind to Shiro, instead of the old man she’d expected him to become, his quintessence being toyed with so many times by Haggar and her druids (a memory he recovered revealing the source of his greying hair). The greying in his hair had slowed down over time and he’d only become better looking; a young silver fox. He still had that shock of white at the front but growing his hair out more evenly had given him a different look, a softer one.

He said it had helped separate him from the Champion in his own mind.

Wearing what looked like loose yoga pants and a light t-shirt with a robe covering them. She edged into the room, Black Lion slippers were parked on the floor by the door. She had a matching pair of Green Lion slippers somewhere in her room and.... She realised suddenly that she was still wearing half her uniform with all the accumulated grease and dirt from tinkering on Green earlier. Waist down, she was ready for battle, up top was the black skin suit. Oh well. She pulled her boots off and set them next to his slippers.

He coughed lightly and she jumped. Her mind was all over the place.

“Oh yeah. Pot, kettle, much?” she replied, lifting a large mug with Katie in Altean on the side. “Buy a girl a drink? I hear you’ve got space vodka and you’re hiding it from the kids.” She flipped her braid around to the front and nibbled the end, trying for winsome and achieving nervous wreck. “Please?”

His eyebrows arched above the glasses. “Oh?” he drawled, a smile pulling at his mouth. “And who fed you these lies?”

She counted them off her fingers. “Lance, Keith, Hunk, Coran, and Platt.” Okay, Platt was a stretch but the mouse had definitely mimed drinking, weaving on his feet, and then falling down on his face with loud snores. Pidge gave Shiro a grin and offered the mug again.

He growled something that she didn’t quite catch and set his book aside. “Attaching space to every word doesn’t make it even remotely an alien version of what we had on Earth. It isn’t vodka, space or otherwise. It’s medicinal and Allura gave it to me for when I can’t sleep which I assume is why you’re here and not in bed.” He reached down to open a cupboard in the desk. The bottle he removed shone like diamond; it was more of a sculpture than a bottle of booze-- medicinal or otherwise, and had a thick red leaf wrapped around the mouth. “Don’t get any ideas, like I’ve told everyone else, the cap is keyed to me personally.” His tone was too mild to get a sense of why he was telling her but she nodded along anyway. Two glasses, vodka glasses to be more accurate, appeared on the desk next to the bottle.

“I get it. Space vodka is for emergencies. Consider it an emergency.” Setting the mug on a shelf, she looked around for somewhere to sit but the only seat left was the window seat. Curved and set into the side of the castle wall, it gave a view of the stars that she wished her own closet-sized room had-- not that she slept that much, other than what she got at her lab when her body gave up each night and she fell asleep over the keyboard. That was now a thin flexi of plastic that didn’t leave an impression on her face for the breakfast crowd’s amusement. From the blanket and pillows, Pidge got the distinct feeling Shiro was sleeping in here more often than his personal quarters. “Thanks, I didn’t really want to drink on my own,” she nodded towards the two glasses and sat on the edge of the seat.

“What happened?” Shiro, ever perceptive, swivelled and sat forward on his chair. He looked at her, a little wrinkle of concern between his brows.

“Got a message.” She studied her hands, wringing them in a very Hunk gesture. “Matt and his partner were caught in an ambush, they’re not dead but definitely not unscathed. He’s coming in to use the healing pods. Allura will let me know when he arrives but it won’t be until tomorrow at the earliest. I just… I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t work, my mind’s going to dark places.” Pidge bit her lip, wondering how much to share. “It reminded me how fragile we are compared to everyone else out here, you know that more than any of us. We skate along on thin ice every day like we’re immortal and we’re so not. Any one of us might be dead tomorrow.” She couldn’t look at him for a second as he sat back in his chair.

“It’s not what anyone would’ve chosen for you if we’d had a choice, Pidge,” he said softly, a trace of guilt crossing his face.

“I’m almost older than you were when we started this crazy adventure, Shiro.” She recognised the look he gave her, none of them liked to remember how long they’d been out here fighting the good fight. How much they’d all sacrificed.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “You can have some.”

She moved a pillow and sat cross-legged, watching him touch the leaf on top of the bottle gently and it unwrapped and bloomed open like a flower. It really was beautiful. He poured a shot into each glass and the bottle closed tightly again. He stood up with a groan and a stretch, she heard the cricks in his back from across the room and made a polite wincing face. “You look like I feel on the inside of my head,” she quipped.

Settling next to her, drawing his legs up to sit cross-legged as well, he passed her one of the glasses. “You should know this is very potent. I barely use it because it knocks the hell out of you for hours.” He fixed her with a gaze that allowed no wiggle room on the use of space vodka. “Got it?”

Platt falling on his tiny whiskered face; she licked her lips nervously. “Not that I don’t appreciate the warning but how potent is potent?”

“It’s not like Earth vodka, nunvill, or any other alcohol you might’ve tried before.” Shiro smiled magnanimously when she made noises like she had no idea what alcohol he thought she’d been drinking, her eyes widening in what she hoped was an expression of complete innocence. That gentle curve was not as rare as in the beginning, when living hurt and loving anyone appeared to hurt more. That smile, when directed at her, gave her butterflies. “You won’t remember falling asleep. You’ll wake refreshed, and the dreams….” His eyes took on a faraway glazed over look, warm and a little more moist than usual. “I can’t describe them,” he added finally. “You probably won’t want to either.”

“But good dreams-- not bad?” she asked. The nightmare playlist from earlier on repeat; Matt, her Dad, Shiro, and the other paladins dying in ever more imaginative and horrible ways was what had driven her here. How could she relax until her brother arrived and she could hug him and know he was going to be okay. This time anyway.

“Yes. Good dreams.”

She looked down at the glass, raised it to her nose but it had no discernible aroma. “Bottoms up!” She drank it quickly and waited. It was like drinking a syrup, the liquid clinging to her tongue and taste buds (which were interpreting the flavour as bergamot, so not really vodka, as Shiro said) but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant, and vaguely sharper than sweeter. Trying to swallow a few more times didn’t rid her mouth of the taste.

Shiro finished his slowly and took the glasses, setting them on the floor. “You might want to head back to your room now, the soporific effect starts almost immediately, Kate.” His pupils dilated slightly at the end of that sentence and his voice trailed off softly as he repeated her name under his breath. He turned to face the window, pulling the blanket over himself, and arranging the pillows. He dimmed the lights verbally in a slurry of words approximating English.

Pidge felt the relaxation pass through her entire body as a bone-melting shiver and removed what remained of her armor while she still could, lying down in the black body suit. “I don’t think I’ll make it to my room,” she mumbled, snuggling against his broad back, big spoon to his little spoon, and pulling half the blanket over herself. “Gonna stay here, m’kay Takashi?”

He made a noise halfway between agreement and a snore, just a bit of one and definitely not as loudly as Platt had implied, and then he was gone to dreamland. She wasn’t far behind, resting her lips on his neck, the smell of his skin in her nose.

 

  
She snorted awake, sitting up so suddenly that the blood rushed to her head and she flopped back with a groan. Her arm connected with something next to her and she remembered almost everything except falling asleep. Shiro had turned over during the night and might’ve still been sleeping when her hand smacked him in the face.

“Ouch.”

“Fuck, sorry Shiro.” The lights in the room came on like a gentle sunrise at their voices and she leaned over to check that she hadn’t given him a black eye or broken nose. His face however, remained as perfect as ever, for Shiro. Even his bed hair looked good in a ruffled kind of way. She could feel her own had come loose from the braid at some point during the night and a considerable amount of it was stuck to her face where she’d been drooling. The universe hated her. She casually raised a hand to unstick the mess and wipe away the drool.

His eyes crinkled in amusement. “No harm done. How did you sleep?”

She needed a stretch, a shower, and food but she’d needed that before she’d come to his door last night. What she felt like was amazing. “You know how I slept,” she replied with a bright sunshiny smile that made her face hurt. When had she smiled like that in the last few years? She tried sitting up again, slowly this time, and swung her legs off the seat.

“See you at breakfast, Kate,” he said, his eyes half-shut, smiling. He stretched and watching him she remembered at least two of her dreams.

The heat pounded in her cheeks so hard she whipped her face away from him before he could notice her blush, and bit down on a knuckle. Stumbling towards the door, she picked up discarded pieces of her armor and fitted them back on as she went. Leaning her hip on the desk, she pulled the boots on with a grunt of effort. “See you then, Takashi, thanks for the space vodka.” It came out in a high squeak and she exited before she lost her shit completely. Damn.


	2. To be human is to love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At least actively avoiding her emerging feelings for Shiro has given Pidge something else to worry about other than Matt.

Pidge returned to her quarters and flopped face forward onto the bed. Rolling over with a groan, she looked around. She came here only to shower and change so it wasn’t surprising that the lab she shared with Hunk was more of a reflection of her than this room. Except for all the discarded clothes on the floor. Yesterday it had all been fine, or was it the day before? Now, it was just cold and lonely.

She’d slept so well, stupid space vodka! She’d had dreams that still made her weak thinking about them, and woken up next to someone she’d never given herself a chance with. She just kind of assumed Allura had staked a claim on Takashi Shirogane years earlier when Pidge was too young to know what she wanted. She was older now; she knew what she wanted now.

Sort of.

Maybe.

Of course, she didn't know how Shiro felt about, well, anything really. She was always too busy working out her own shit.

Dragging off her armour, Pidge made her way to the small bathroom adjoining her suite and turned the shower on. She let the water run for a few minutes while she released what remained of the braid. The thick hair came out in an explosion that didn’t improve her opinion of it at all. Maybe she would ask Lance to cut it for her again, he never seemed to mind.

Stripping out of the black skin suit, she kicked it behind her and got under the water, lathering up the unruly mess on her head. Altean all-in-one hair and body wash products came in a capsule that increased in volume when they came into contact with water and smelt a lot like fruit. Her stomach grumbled sympathetically. "Quiet you,” she told her stomach, like it would listen.

After a minute or two, the shampoo changed to a conditioning mask; the trick was to wash it out of her hair before it reached that fluffy cloud state that Allura’s hair existed in. Pidge didn’t enjoy looking like she had a cloud on her head, only Allura could pull that look off with any success. She washed it out and the residue became body wash. She resisted the urge to linger longer because her stomach was now in a state of quivering anticipation. She had promised herself breakfast and her stomach wanted delivery on that.

A little under half of her inventions were based around simplifying the lives of everyone (but mostly her own) in the castle where it hadn’t already been created by the Alteans more than ten thousand and some years earlier. Once she’d seen it the first time, Pidge had installed the decontamination technology to create a human washer drier in her bathroom though she mostly used the drying part. She stepped on the floor pad that turned off the water and started up the drier, bracing herself. It scoured her dry, head to toe, in a few seconds. Maybe she was going to look like a cloud after all.

The Alteans were certainly not vain in the way humans were and there were few mirrors in the castle, to Lance's eternal and abiding horror, but Pidge didn’t need a mirror to tell her how many scars she had, how the dark under her eyes was permanently etched into her pale skin, or that her eyes were dull with the ghosts of the dead. When she did catch her reflection, it always shocked the hell out of her. Who was that woman who was as tall as Keith had been when they’d arrived on Arusia, the one with the long hair and curves, with the muscles?

She stepped over her armour and pulled a fresh set of clothes from the closet, finding a pair of boots under a pile of laundry. She'd have to deal with that sometime. Maybe tomorrow. With a sigh, Pidge gathered up her hair, tying it off her face, and picked up the pieces of her paladin armour from the floor. She carried it down to the armoury, throwing it all into the cleaning unit created to clean and repair the paladin armour. Coran had told them about it only after they’d all ruined their fourth or fifth set each and replacement parts were getting low. She wondered idly what set she was on now?

 

 

The dining hall was half full when she arrived, the table buzzing with energy and chatter. After the second infiltration seven years earlier, the only allies or Galra permitted in the castle were those that Kolivan and Coran had personally vetted. Blades and paladins sat side by side, conspiring and gossiping; Galra were the worst gossips around when they got comfortable enough to speak casually. Especially about their favourite serials. If she never got spoiled for another episode of Galra Lady Cop Squad, it’d be too soon.

She picked up one of the breakfast bowls and filled it with goo of the space raspberry variety. Space raspberry. She smothered a bubble of space amusement.

Things had definitely improved on the goo front when she and Hunk had discovered that Alteans had far more taste buds than their human counterparts. Every meal that Coran had created was indeed a culinary and nutritional wonder-- to an Altean. Humans just didn’t have enough taste buds to appreciate the many flavours and it all came out as gross. A simplified, less flavoursome food goo had been created and the humans were happy again. Hunk couldn’t always be around to cook for them what with being a paladin, an engineer working between the castle and the Blade of Marmora’s headquarters, and Vrepit Sal’s silent partner and menu planner for the entire chain. Cooking was a luxury he didn't have time for too often any more.

Pidge treasured the moments they got side by side in the lab tinkering on something together. They were due some tinkering time. She'd remind him when he turned up.

Slouching into the chair next to Keith, she stuck her spork into the quivering pile of goo and watched it dance around the bowl for a few seconds. When it stopped moving, she jammed the first mouthful in and made a happy noise.

“You look different today, did you change your hair?” asked Keith politely, offering to pour her a cup of jarva, same miraculous wake up powers of coffee with a hint more spice and cream. 

Keith had matured into a gentle giant, his Galra genes adding height and weight to his frame. The mullet of his youth was nowhere to be seen, his indigo hair uniformly long and braided off his face. Save for bangs that Lance couldn't banish even if he tried. A long, thankfully shallow, scar marred his left eyebrow and grazed down his cheek, giving him a perpetually querying expression.

She raised a hand to check but it still felt smooth and tidy, tied up in a high ponytail. “No, why?”

Lance peered around from his seat next to Keith. “It’s not the hair,” he said slowly.

While Keith had grown into his hybrid Galra self perfectly, the promise of Lance’s youth had paid up as well. He was a handsome man, ridiculously so, but it was his genuine kindness and good spirit that lent his face the attractiveness that made everyone a little weak in the knees when he plied the charm. Not the cheesy flirtatiousness of his teens but something that made even her feel breathless sometimes.

“No,” continued Lance, his eyes narrowing as he focused in on her a little too closely. Subconsciously, she leaned away. Then his expression cleared and he whispered loud enough for Keith and Pidge to hear. “Space vodka.”

“Oh, yeah,” nodded Keith, angling his head down to gaze a bit too long at her face. “That’s it.” He smiled brightly. “Space vodka.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” she murmured with a glance at Shiro. The spork scooped food up and deposited in her mouth on autopilot as she watched him. “Attaching space to every word doesn’t make it even remotely an alien version of what we had on Earth. It isn’t vodka, space or otherwise.”

“Wow, you nailed his tone perfectly,” said Lance with a grin that she caught from the corner from her eye. “Best night sleep I ever got and the dreams….” Was Lance blushing? And picking up Keith’s hand? And kissing the knuckles?

She turned away and drank half her jarva in one gulp and watched the Black Paladin. Shiro’s head was tilted up to listen to both Kolivan and Allura. He was sitting between the two leaders, trying to eat as they talked at him. Shiro nodded at regular intervals but his eyes travelled in Pidge's direction and he smiled. Keith and Lance followed her gaze and then looked back at her with fresh expressions that made her want to stab them.

“Shut up!” she said, although neither had spoken. She finished her goo and put the bowl in the washer. “Later, jerks,” she added affectionately in passing, heading for her lab.

 

  
It was quiet when she arrived, lights flickering on as soon as she stepped into the lab. Checking some of her ongoing work where it silently compiled in the background, she felt a sense of growing unease. Matt still hadn’t arrived yet and until he did, her anxiety was going to increase exponentially by the tick. If Hunk had been around, she might’ve been able to distract herself. After a couple of vargas by herself, she gave up.

With a sigh, she left the lab and wandered through the castle to the main library. The lights were already on so somewhere in there, was another body. She climbed the stairs to the third mezzanine and trailed her fingers along the smaller tomes lining the shelves. Her finger rested on the spine of one and she heard the click she’d been waiting for.

The paladin histories were kept in a private section of the library, only accessible by a current or past paladin, or a member of the royal family. The shelf slid behind another to reveal a dark room hidden behind it, the light came on reluctantly and she tinkered for a moment or two with the control until the lights brightened the room to a gaslight golden hue. She closed the room behind her.

A single shelf wrapped unbroken around the circular space, a curved seat followed the line of the shelf and a small circular table rose from the centre of the room. The shelf was mostly empty and Pidge was again reminded of the fragility of life as a paladin. There should’ve been so many more life stories here. Pidge slipped the first few volumes of King Alfor’s diaries off the shelf and set them aside on the table. She also collected the journal of the first Green Paladin, and Zarkon’s biography as the Black Paladin.

Her eyes were drawn to a new book though, lying on it’s side on the shelf; blue and the size of a brick. She picked it up and opened it to the title page, her breath catching for a moment. Lance’s diary of his first year as the Blue Paladin. It was beautiful. Bound in faux leather with a stylised version of the Blue Lion embossed on the cover in gold. The interior was illustrated with drawings, photos, and tiny cartoons interspersed between the entries. Her eyes skipped over the text, sniggering at a cartoon of herself tazing Lance with her bayard.

Despite the pull to read any new book in the library, it felt too invasive to read her friend’s diary, even if being left on the shelf kind of invited the attention. She was surprised that Lance had written a book, then judged herself harshly for being uncharitable to her dear friend. He was more than capable of selling himself as a legend, he was well on the way. She returned the diary to the shelf and picked up her carefully curated selection.

Closing the door, she turned and ran smack into Shiro’s chest. “Ow,” she grunted.

“Pidge,” he said brightly. In his hands, a pile of the dry histories that Coran had foisted on him. “What are you up to?” He glanced at the books in her hands. “Surely you’ve read everything in the library by now.”

“Not everything. I haven’t read the Blue Paladin’s diary yet.”

“Our Blue Paladin?” asked Shiro, eyes widening. Perhaps he was struggling with the concept of Lance writing a book as well. “Huh.”

She nodded then gave him a mischievous smirk. “I don’t think I’m ready to reread the first year from Lance’s point of view just yet.”

“You might be onto something there. Well,” he said softly, opening the paladin library. “Please don’t let me keep you from your reading, Pidge.”

Opening her mouth to correct him, she changed her mind and smiled. “I’ll see you later then.”

Carrying the books back to her quarters, she dropped them on the bed. Now she’d committed to ‘later then’. The thought of spending time showing Shiro each one made her feel a little warm though and she bit down another smile then shook her head. “Enough of this already. It's just Shiro.”

 

  
Retracing her steps from the morning, she returned to the lab where there was still no Hunk. Then the armoury, where her paladin armour was sparkling when she removed it from the cleaning unit. She carefully checked her suit enhancements which were just a fancy name, according to Keith, for hidden weapons of mass destruction. She tested each one and reset it. Changing into the armour, she pushed her clothes into the laundry chute, it was easier than walking the pile back to her quarters.

 _“Pidge?”_ Allura’s voice came over the room comm. _“Matthew is incoming. Shiro will....”_

She missed the rest of the message as she shoved her helmet on and ran, drowning out everything with her quick sharp breaths. She hated running. It was always away from something scary or towards something even scarier in their line of work but she sprinted to the Green Lion’s hangar nonetheless. The ramp was already down, her beloved Green waiting to leave.

Pidge blew out of the hangar like a rocket and the Black Lion caught up with her a few ticks later.

 _“Pidge,”_ said Shiro over the helmet comms, his voice was doing that mildly disappointed thing he had a habit of doing sometimes. _“We were going to leave together.”_ If there was anyone who more worried about Matt out here than her, it was Shiro.

“Oh, I didn’t hear that part, was running too hard and couldn’t make out the rest of the message.” She bit off a groan. Shouldn’t have admitted that. He was going to penalise her with training, she just had a feeling. Not that she hated training but she knew there were better things she could be doing with the time. Like not training.

 _“I’m sure that we can work on your fitness,”_ he confirmed but could she hear the hint of a smile under that gruffness? _“With some extra training.”_

She shuddered in her seat. “Fine! Seems harsh but fine, extra training then.” Matt’s ship was out at the edge of the system and the two Lions tracked his progress towards them with minimal commentary after that. The flight path was too smooth for her brother though, she loved him but he couldn’t fly straight to save himself. She sniggered at her own double entendre then denied she’d made a noise at all when Shiro queried it. “Think he’s got the ship set on autopilot?” she asked. There’d been no response to her hailing the ship and Matt wouldn't have ignored it. If she was worried before….

Shiro hummed an agreement over the comm, then, _“Yeah, maybe, let’s get in closer and have a look.”_ The Black Lion accelerated towards the ship, moving quickly to first circle then pull alongside. Pidge scanned the interior; two biological life forms-- one human, one not. Both were alive, one barely, but neither was moving. The ship was on autopilot as she’d suspected and the drive was failing, puttering out as she watched. It was probably Matt’s blood, sweat, and tears that had got it this far.

The scanner picked up something further out, past Matt’s ship, entering the system at speed. “Shiro?”

 _“I see it,”_ he grunted, sounding about as happy as she felt. Which was not at all. _“I’ll run interference, you get Matt’s ship back to the castle.”_ The Galra cruiser had begun to fire it’s long range cannons and the Lions were buffeted by the thunderous energy beams as they attempted to shield Matt’s ship from further damage.

The wrong buzzer noise slipped out. “Ehhhnt! Hate to break it to you, big guy, but the Black Lion can literally carry that ship in her mouth and I think we can all agree, Green can’t. So _I_ will run interference for _you_.”

The comm was silent for a second. _“I’m not going to spend valuable time arguing with you over an order, Paladin,”_ he came back with in an entirely unreasonably reasonable voice. It not so subtly promised that they would be spending time discussing the nature of line of command and following orders. Again. She noticed the Black Lion had picked up the small rebel ship in it’s mouth though.

She pushed forward, beginning to accelerate past Shiro, when the castle entered her view. It’s shield had extended to protect both lions and Matt’s ship, and it was returning fire.

 _“If I can break in for a moment, Paladins--”_ Allura’s voice cut over the comm, her tone terse. _“I’m opening a wormhole. We’ve dallied in this system too long waiting for Matthew so return your Lions and that ship to the hangars.”_ The implication was right now, immediately, asap... just in case they missed it.

 

  
Pidge cut a new door into the rebel ship when she couldn’t get the existing one to release, Shiro breathing down her neck as she worked, offering to use his hand but she pushed him away. He was being entirely too damn distracting. Impatient, his metal fist went through the rectangle of metal when she finished cutting, pulling it out and tossing it aside for her to duck through the hole.

The interior was full of acrid smoke and sparking panels. Matt was slumped unconscious in the pilot’s seat, his partner lifeless next to him; their helmet was on an internal water re-breathing system that was making noises that Pidge knew for a certainty it shouldn’t be making. “I don’t even know their name,” she said softly, adjusting some of the suit settings to refine the re-circulation of water. It only had to last until they made it to the healing pods.

“Neither do I,” replied Shiro, with a small frown.

“It’s times like this that I’m glad you made me work on my core strength all these years. Hate to think all that training was for nothing and I couldn’t carry my brother like the princess he is,” she joked to Shiro as he bent over Matt’s companion, releasing them from their safety harness. She released Matt from his and slipped her hands under his knees and shoulders, lifting him with a groan. “Can we _please_ consider this my extra training? Matt has to weigh a solid ton right now with his ship suit on. It counts in somebody’s book.”

Someone snorted behind them. Hunk had entered unseen and was scanning the drive. “Don’t mind me,” he said with a chuckle. “Just making sure the ship doesn’t blow up while two of my favourite people are in it.”

“Glad to hear it, Hunk.” Shiro gave Pidge a glance and a tight smile. “I’ll think about it,” he replied neutrally.

Coran was outside with a small medical team when they emerged and the wounded were transferred to the waiting stretchers. “I’m gonna go with them,” said Pidge, hooking her thumb in the direction of the fast moving medics.

“Of course, we’ll talk later.” Shiro gave her shoulder a squeeze. Pidge gave him a jaunty salute and turned away but heard him choke a laugh and say, “Wrong arm, cadet.”

She caught up with the medical team as they were readying her brother for a healing pod. Coran looked up from his scanner, his expression guarded but warm at her arrival. “Ah, Five, I was expecting you.”

Pidge knew better than to get in his way so she held out her hand and Coran passed her the screen. “How is he?” she asked, looking at Matt’s vitals. There was nothing there that she liked so she gave it back to Coran.

“Better than I expected. Minor internal injuries from a close concussive blast, minor burns, and a particularly nasty pair of knife wounds to his back. He hasn’t regained consciousness but I don’t see any head injuries in the scan so best estimate is that it’s from blood loss. You humans seem to lose it so easily.” Coran eyed the blood on her white paladin armour. Matt’s blood. “Everything else is bits and bobs, nothing that we’ll have any trouble with.”

She nodded in relief.

Coran oversaw Matt’s transfer into the pod while Pidge watched, nibbling at her bottom lip nervously. Her brother was in good hands but it didn’t ease her anxiety any. “A quintent at most, I should think,” said Coran.

“What about the other one?” she asked suddenly, ducking her head, embarrassed. “I don’t know their name.”

“Oh, Ruskea going by the badge on the helmet. They’re doing splendidly, we’ve attached their suit to a water replenisher and the recovery has been quicker than expected.” Ruskea lay on an examination table, tubes going in and out of the worn suit. “They should be up and about well before your brother.” The darkened visor turned to study Pidge. She stared back until Ruskea looked away. Something didn’t feel right.

“I’m going to get something to work on and I’ll be back,” she said to Coran. Then added in a whisper, “Don’t leave Matt alone until then. Please?”

The Altean patted her shoulder and nodded.

She caught up with Shiro in the hangar. He was picking through the rebel ship with Hunk but looked up when she appeared in the doorway. “Is Matt alright, Pidge?” Shiro’s expression radiated concern and surprise. “I didn’t expect to see you back here so soon.”

“Coran assures me he’s going to be fine. Have you found anything,” she asked, leaning through the hole she’d cut, wrinkling her nose at the state of the ship, somehow worse now the smoke had cleared. “This thing is a wreck.”

“Yeah,” agreed Shiro, he sat down in the pilot's seat and pulled up the navigation system. “More than usual for anything Matt flies. How it even made it to us in this condition is the real mystery.” Pidge could see a frown forming as he studied the data.

“Oh and we’ve found plenty,” said Hunk brightly. He held up a tiny data cube. “This must be what Matt got hurt retrieving. We found it hidden under a damaged panel in the engineering controls.” Hunk tucked it into his belt pouch.

“Hmmm, a little easy for something Matt hid.” Pidge cast an appraising eye around the space. Too many choices but if it was important he wasn’t going to let it out of his sight-- or hands. His staff was stowed secure in a clip next to the pilot’s seat and she leaned past Shiro to run her fingers along the length of it, finding a tiny button that began to blink red at her. If Shiro was uncomfortable about her being in his personal space, he didn't let on, continuing to work around her body. She tapped the button on the staff again in a seemingly random series and then abruptly the staff clicked and twisted. She pulled it out of the clip and snapped it open above the button. A second data cube fell into her hand.

Hunk let out a little gasp of surprise, eyes widening. “Oooo, Fibonacci? Sneaky,” he said, with a nod of approval.

“I think this is the one we really want. Someone else wanted us to find the other one first.” She frowned at the cube. “Slow us down maybe.”

“Let’s get it to the Princess then,” said Shiro, powering the nav system down again. “Hunk, if the engine isn’t going to explode imminently, you and I are on escort duty.” 


	3. Interlude - Young Guns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a betting pool?

Keith laced his fingers through Lance’s as they left the warmth and chatter of the dining room behind them. He recalled, with vivid clarity, the recent brush of lips against the sensitive skin on the back of his hand and his breath hitched, cheeks blooming as they always did when he thought about Lance’s kisses. Lance spared a glance his way at the breathy sound, not quite smiling yet but one was close from the way his mouth was beginning to curl up at the ends.

They should be well past the blushing and hand-holding stage of their relationship but for some reason Keith couldn’t control the blood vessels in his cheeks any more than Lance couldn’t fail to use it mercilessly to his advantage.

Lance attempted to swing their hands like preschoolers but Keith held firm on his no-swinging rule. Keith tried, he really did, but Lance knew every button he had now and pushed relentlessly.

“Dear diary,” began Lance, flinging the back of his other hand to his forehead in a manner Keith was all too familiar with. “Keith is being such a dick today. What should I do?”

And they were back to Lance’s latest fixation. Diaries. To create a living record for his family back on Earth until he wasn't living. Keith shivered. Their luck had held this long and it made Lance happy. He kept the verbal entries PG when they were in the castle’s public spaces at Keith's request, because you just didn’t know when a fellow Blade would pop up and get incriminating intel on your infant of a mate for Leader to use against you.

“Are you writing  _another_ book?” Keith huffed, ignoring Lance rolling his eyes affectionately in his direction. “Dear diary,” said Keith with a heavy sigh, “Lance is being unreasonable about public displays of affection and is acting juvenile. Again. What should I do?”

They bumped shoulders, trying to push each other into the wall, or rather, Lance bumped his shoulder into Keith’s bicep and Keith was immovable.

“Dear diary, Keith is taller than me. Again. And while that’s really hot, he’s also sending me to die at the hands of his other space family and I don’t know why he is giving me all these mixed messages. Does he love me, does he not? Diary, what should I do?” Lance’s voice took on a betrayed edge as he looked up at Keith, batting his ridiculous eyelashes and wiping away fake tears.

There were times…. “ _Shiro_ scheduled the extra training session with the Blade, Lance, not me. Maybe if you spared a few hours of training to physical combat with someone other than me, and not marksmanship all the time when you’re training around the team, you would know why Shiro does the things he does.” Then, added with a tiny smirk, “You'll always be my Sharpshooter.”

A delightful pout appeared on Lance’s mouth. “I can still kick your ass where it counts, Samurai. Just because I’m a natural, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t keep practising.”

“Bed doesn’t count, Lance.”

“Bed always counts, Keith. Wait. Wait… gimme a tick to work out if I should be offended right now.” A few silent doboshes shot past Lance’s notice before he shook his head and said, “So are you gonna be trying to kill me in training with the rest of the furry fam?”

“For the love of…" Keith breathed angrily. "They are not trying to….” Keith growled, clenching his teeth. Patienceyieldsfocuspatienceyieldsfocus. “No, Lance, as tempting as it is to try and kill you, having waited eight long suffering years for this day to finally arrive; I will be spending my time with Coran in the medical bay where I’ll be polishing up on my  _saving_ people skills. Shiro thinks I’m spending too much time stabbing people lately, even if they deserved it.” 

Lance made a noise.

Keith looked down at his significant other with a scowl. “What now?”

“So I’ll see you later then, after your family kick my ass six ways to Sunday and I’m in desperate need of saving?” He had the kicked puppy look down to a fine art. Even at twenty-six he could still sell this particular brand of shit and Keith would buy it. Every. Damn. Time.

“When I’ll kiss every bruise and graze better. In private. Try  _not_ to get killed though. I don’t think my medic skills are up to resurrection.” He ducked his head to kiss Lance’s cheek but Lance turned his face swiftly to catch it on the lips.

“Is that accepted medical practice? Kissing my boo boos better? Would Coran approve?” A smirk appeared on Lance’s face. He tried swinging their hands again, and again Keith stopped it dead.

“Yes, I ask myself that every time I have to kiss one of your boo boos better. WWCD?” Keith rolled his eyes. “Don’t actually ask him that though.” Coran might approve, urge them to try for medical science, all the while twirling his moustache like the villain he secretly was.

They stopped in front of the lift and waited for it to appear. Lance pressed the panel a couple more times. “What?” he said, looking up at Keith’s strictly blank face. “It’s an old ship, it might not have worked the first four times.” The doors opened and the lift was full of Blades, overflowing with them. “We’ll catch the next one,” he said quickly.

The doors closed again and one of the Blades at the front made finger guns at Lance as they slid shut.

“You saw that, right?” said Lance in rising horror. “They’re  _literally_ gunning for me.” He ranted softly under his breath for a few more ticks. “I just had to choose a mate based on good looks and sex who incidentally was born into a furry space ninja cult....”

With a sigh, Keith said, “How am I the bad guy in this? You’re the one who taught them finger guns.”

Lance gripped his hand tighter.

Keith interpreted that plus no quick fire answer as - Lance was truly concerned. “It’s psychological, Lance, don’t let them get to you like this. Fingers aside, Blades are all about blades-- not guns. I had to go punch for stab with more of them over an entire quintant, maybe longer, so you can deal with a couple of Blades for a couple of vargas easily. You’ve never been worried about fighting with Marmora agents before; you can do this, blindfolded with your hands tied behind your back if you have to. You can tell me all about it later. How amazing you were, how many asses you kicked....”

“Please tell me you did not say they could blindfold me and tie my hands behind my back though?” Lance bent over like he was about to have a panic attack. “Like that’s not utterly terrifying!”

“Just. Breathe.” Keith squeezed Lance’s hand, placing his other hand between Lance’s shoulder blades and rubbing gently. “Again, Shiro organised it, not me. I misspoke. Shiro asked me if we still fought and I said, “Daily, about what?”” He nudged Lance. “Get it? Nothing? My humor is wasted. He said he meant hand to hand so I said, “Daily.” He took that as a euphemism for sex. I chose not to correct him. If the Blades are totally unprepared for you to kick some asses and they think it’s just going to be a series of sparring matches with progressively larger opponents….” Keith shrugged. “Well, you’ve been there, done that, got the boyfriend.”

_He_  sure remembered his feet going out from under him and Lance leaning in to check he was okay, sweat and concern dripping off his face in equal volumes, smelling amazing. Saying, “Arrrre yoooou ooookaaaay?” in slow mo. That might’ve even been  _the_ moment. Whiplash to the heart.

“And I can tell you everything later?” Lance straightened and he took on a more thoughtful expression as he leaned into Keith's side. “Will this earn me  _special_ privileges? A  _bonding moment_ if you like?”

Keith crushed a grin and pressed the panel to bring back the lift. “You’ll have to talk to Shiro about that since it’s a training matter.”

The pout returned for a moment. “Oh diary, I am so wounded. Keith has told me to find succour in Shiro’s beefy arms if I survive. He knows Shiro is all about the Pidge right now.” Lance’s eyebrows waggled at Keith and he grinned infectiously.

“I know!” Burst from Keith, as his mouth lost the fight with the smile he'd been smothering since breakfast. “Pidge… and Shiro….” He flung his free hand up in the air like he was struggling with the whole concept of it.

“I know right?” Lance squeezed Keith’s hand again, this time with an edge of excitement. He was practically dancing in place. “Who had Pidge and Shiro eight years down in the betting pool?”

“Probably Slav. We should ban him, he always wins. Maybe we shouldn't assume anything though. It was space vodka combined with Pidge and Shiro we're talking about.” Like neither of them remembered one shot space vodka nights and the quiet euphoria that followed in the morning.

"Hmm." Lance hummed in agreement. The lift doors opened again, and once again, it was full of Blades. Keith suspected it was same bunch as earlier, just trying to troll Lance for shits and giggles by switching masks around, so he didn’t recognise them. Keith would remember though. Oh yes. “Okay, how many of you guys am I going to be training with?” Lance asked, his eyes narrowed.

“Training?” replied one, inclining their head to look at him. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

Lance pulled his hand free of Keith’s and gestured at the Blades. It was pure drama in two wildly gesticulating hands. “See? This is what I’m talking about.”

“Get in the lift, Lance,” said Keith, pushing him in. They turned away from the Blades, Keith’s hand between Lance’s shoulders, keeping him facing front. “Guys, don’t say I didn’t warn you not to piss off my mate. I’ll see you  _all_ in the medical bay later.”

A flurry of whispering lit up behind them.

Keith caught the return of confident Lance’s smile in the reflective surface of the doors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it's shit.
> 
> Wait, I didn't mention there would be interludes between chapters? Uh, sorry 'bout that.
> 
> You guys have been so patient, the Pidge/Shiro chapter is coming, I just need to agonise over it a little more. Never have anxiety, it sucks! Or migraines.
> 
> As always, let me know if I made a spelling mistake. Don't let me know that you don't ship them or Pidge/Shiro (hint: don't care, it's just fiction).
> 
> Come see me on my Voltron sideblog, @crazywordsmustache


	4. Cross Your Fingers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a simple job. Walk Matt's data cubes from the Black Lion's hangar to the main deck. Give them to Princess Allura. End task. You'd think that they couldn't screw that up right? Right?

On an average day, the walk from the Black Lion’s hangar to the lift was not a long one. Five doboshes at most if you weren’t distracted. But it was not an average day and Pidge was definitely distracted. By Matt. By Matt’s data cube. By space vodka dreams, and by Shiro, the worst distraction of all.

He walked beside her, oblivious to her quandary, with Hunk at their backs whistling softly. She didn't recognise the tune but it was making her want to punch his beautiful face. She didn’t. But she wanted to. And she would never. Without good reason. So never.

Pidge held the data cube in her hand like a grenade. Getting it here had almost killed her brother and she had a low key bad vibe about it. It would’ve been easier if she’d been alone. She would’ve opened that bad boy up and been the only one in the kill zone. That was a little over-dramatic. She dialled back. She’d be the only one that  _might potentially_ be in a kill zone.

She considered her companions. Could she get rid of them? Not that she didn't love the current company... maybe love was a strong word. She was glad for the current company... was glad not strong enough? She felt _something_ about their company but not at the expense of more important work that they could be doing and were probably ignoring to walk her down a corridor they'd all walked a few thousand times and could do blindfolded. “I’m glad you’re both with me but I'm  _more_ than capable of delivering this without getting into trouble,” she said, then smiled, widely. Was that too many teeth? “If there's other things you can be doing--  _what_? What is it?”

Shiro's eyes had gone wide then narrowed into calculating. Hunk's eyebrows had shot up under his headband.

“No, Pidge, you can’t open it. Not unless you can disconnect the cube from the castle completely.” While Shiro sounded easy going, his voice had that edge that dissuaded the paladins from arguing with him. Normally dissuaded them.

She was already on his shit list but now it was practically a familial obligation to check the data cube. Nope, she wasn’t going to let it hurt anyone else. Not Shiro. Not Hunk. No one. Make sure the data wasn’t loaded with one of Haggar's intelligent viruses? Check! She'd seen the damage those had caused first hand. Never again was too soon. “We can do that in our lab, right Hunk?”

“Pidge, we’re not opening the cubes.” Shiro had adjusted the pitch of his voice in just that way that made her want to listen to him. Damn he was good at getting people to do things his way. It was so hard to resist. She bit her lip. “Do you think I came along because I was worried about your physical safety, Pidge? I came to save you from the obvious temptation the data cubes offer. Perhaps you should just give it to me?” He held out his right hand.

Pidge spared him a sideways glance. Sometimes it was uncanny how on her wavelength he was. “No offence but I don’t want the data cube to download into your arm by mistake. I’ll hold onto it for now. Promise I’ll be good.” Her fingers were crossed at her back.

Hunk snorted behind her. “He's seen the inside of your head hole too many times to ignore  _without getting into trouble_ and  _promise I’ll be good_ with a straight face. No one on this team has any secrets left, you included, Pidgy. Why do you think I convinced Coran we were about as mentally bonded as we were going to be and continuing on with the exercise was doing more harm than good. I couldn’t take another one of Lance’s sex memories. And when Allura started visualising Kolivan in that very last session and Coran nearly had a stroke, that really was the end.”

Shiro choked back a laugh. “Hunk!”

Pidge groaned, recalling the exact moment he was describing. “Ugh! Coran wasn’t the only one.”

“Now. No more distracting us. We’re not leaving you alone with a new toy,” said Hunk, holding the data cube he’d found on his palm. “Like Shiro said, it’s an obvious temptation, to just open it up and have a look.” He finger quoted for emphasis.

Funny. He hadn’t specified just her though. She glanced at him and he gave her a barely perceptible nod. He wanted to check them too? Shiro noticed the absence of chatter and eyed them both suspiciously. She gave him a completely innocent grin. Hunk turned away with a chuckle.

“We’re not opening the cubes,” repeated Shiro though he sounded less sure to her ears.

“Fine! Don’t cry to me when you die because something horrible is in there and it ate you!” she emoted explosively. Stupid. Of course it was tempting! “I wasn’t even thinking about it, shows what you both know.” She called Matt’s vitals up from medical. They were no worse, creeping towards not dying by the tick. The last notation on file was from Keith. “Huh, Keith’s on medical rotation today.” She glanced at Shiro. "Doesn't he like stabbing people more than saving them?"

“A common myth. Keith only stabs as a last resort, he's more of a slash kind of guy. But yes, he pissed me off and now he's doing a shift with Coran on the medical deck. How’s Matt?” asked Shiro, guessing what she was looking at. He leaned over her shoulder, his arm reaching down to poke at the screen and bring up more information about the wounds on Matt’s back. The muscles in his arm flexed right next to her face. Pidge side-eyed it for a tick and warmth began to trickle into her face. She could appreciate a well made bunch of muscles. He made the noise again, like from the cockpit of Matt’s ship. She wanted to know what it signified. “Enter a request for Keith to look at the wounds, I want a Blade’s insight.”

“Okay. You’ll tell me why at some point, right?” She entered the note on the file, flagging Keith.

Shiro’s chin rested on her shoulder and the smile directed at her was kind. “I’m sure it’s nothing, Pidge. Just an old soldier's worry.”

Pidge shrugged, irritated, and pushed his face away before she broke out in a terminal blush. Was this a space vodka hangover? No pain, no headache, only excruciating self awareness whenever Shiro came too close? She wanted him to get close though, didn’t she? She groaned. “He’s not going to be out of the pod until later tomorrow at this rate.” Shutting down the connection to medical and to the castle, she opened a scanner and put the data cube on her gauntlet.

“Are you sure I can’t open the data cube? If I do it on my gauntlet I can shut off the connection to the castle easy. Hunk agrees, right Hunk?” She bit the inside of her cheek. Now that Hunk had foolishly endorsed her earlier curiosity in front of Shiro, he was fair game. “I can do it on the way upstairs.” She was good at walking and working. Also, running and working, sweating and working, bleeding and working….

Shiro was silent for a few long moments then he sighed. “Okay, okay, just be quick. No surprises. Don’t make me regret this, Pidge.”

Between her helmet and the scanner, she watched the cube open. Shiro’s hand on her lower back guided her around a corner. His hand left the impression of warmth behind and she wanted to ignore it but that small touch was nice. He’d done it a thousand times over the years but it never felt exactly like that before.

Goddamn space vodka.

“Oh.” Data began to form, it was beautiful. Ghostly lines of code that danced outwards in every increasing gyres. Data  _didn’t_ dance. Data was rigid and conformed to pre-established patterns that made sense. “Weird. Hunk?”

The yellow paladin moved closer and Shiro fell back to walk behind them to provide cover. Not that there was a credible threat in play but Shiro seemed to orbit them all out of habit. She didn’t like to think too hard about why. It was implicit; it was about not losing anyone to inattentiveness or worse, weakness.

She’d say it was dumb, stupid even, but she felt the same.

“Explain what you mean by weird, Pidge?” asked Shiro, epitome of calm professionalism with a honeyed voice.

Maybe only she thought his voice was honeyed. She turned her head to answer him, mouth open to speak.

He was  _always_  the Black Paladin, the leader and guy most responsible for too many things to count. Even when he was joking around with them off duty he was still on duty. He’d been so relaxed earlier, it’d been different in a good way. Like the weight on his shoulders had lifted and left him as a different man briefly. “What?” She realised she had been staring at him for a few ticks and coughed. Then choked on her cough. She needed more information. She would have to ask Hunk about his own experiences with space vodka. Since Keith and Lance had shared absolutely nothing except excruciating kissy faces.

“Weird in what way?” he replied patiently. And she hadn’t missed the blush dusting his cheeks.

Hunk made a noise, drawing their attention back to the cube. He poked at the data streams. Between his fingers and hers, it didn’t change anything. “The translation software isn’t translating it,” he said, answering Shiro’s question for Pidge, frowning at her.

They stopped walking to focus on the cube.

“Looks like junk files to me. I mean, superficially it looks like data. A few million unrelated words in known languages, hidden star charts, audio files that won't load. The deeper you get, the less it all looks like anything collectively real. The software can’t translate it if it isn’t _something_ to begin with. I suppose it might need a cipher key but--” Pidge moved the cube around. “--it also kind of looks like Olkarian tech. Bit heavier though.” She frowned. It was a good way to get someone to trust its legitimacy. Use an allies technology to shroud it. Have it delivered by someone whose loyalty was beyond reproach.

“Junk files like when Ulaz hid the coordinates to the Thaldycon system in my arm?” asked Shiro. His voice took on a soft, sad, inflection that always accompanied that particular Galra’s name.

Pidge believed that Shiro struggled to reconcile the sacrifices made on their behalf. Those made on  _his_  behalf. Who was she kidding, they all struggled with the sacrifices. She’d been to the rebel's planet sized memorial to their fallen warriors. In a different universe, it could’ve been Matt’s  _actual_ grave instead of a puzzle. Or her father’s.

“Uh no, not quite,” said Pidge absently, shaking her head. It was annoying. Matt put this together. She should’ve been able to access it already. “Gimme your one, Hunk, I want to compare them.” She held out her hand and he dropped the second data cube in it with only a hint of hesitation. She added it to the scan. “More junk.”

“So why did Matt risk his life getting them here? There has to be something valuable there." Shiro’s frustration began to show, as tension in his frame, the thinning of his lips.

The two cubes began to interact and the shape was familiar. “Oh shit,” she gasped in recognition. “Oh Matt.”

“Pidge?” Hunk had seen it too and reached to take the second cube away. “We need to stop it!”

“Stop what?” Shiro was looking to both of them for answers.

“No! It’s too late. Shiro, I’ll tell you everything in a few doboshes when the dust clears but you need to trust me.” Now that the data was making sense, she’d seen this kind of thing on a much larger scale. This was Slav level physics in miniature, clothed in magic, and weaponized. “Short version is I fucked up.”

"I think I was pretty clear when I said no surprises, Pidge," growled Shiro, looking a lot like he regretted getting out of bed that morning.

'To be fair,' she thinks, 'there’s a first time for everything.'

Time felt like it had slowed down. Hunk was shouting but she ignored him. It was too late to pull the cubes apart so she shed her glove and gauntlet in one smooth movement, the cubes still attached, and kicked them down the corridor while turning to tackle Shiro and access his arm. Because if she can get to the shutdown that they discovered in the first serious attempt at an arm rebuild-- it might be okay. But it’s not easy. She’s on the wrong angle and he’s unprepared for her and fights every attempt to latch on without explanation.

They hit the floor hard and he says her name like he would say a swear word, not quiznak but something more guttural. He attempted to pull away from her. “Pidge!”

She doesn’t have time for him to be pulling this shit. “In. A. Tick.”

“ _Pidge? Stop!_ ” 

There was no more time.

The arm shut down. She let out the breath she was holding and released Shiro, hands held up and away from him. He glared at her, holding his dead arm against his body as he tried to stand and lost his balance. Hunk hooked a hand under his other arm to help him but Shiro shook him off. He didn’t understand, he’d be alright once she explained what happened and what was going to happen.

He'd forgive her. He always did.

Not immediately, she conceded.

It took a lot to piss him off like this. Slav could do it simply by existing, she’s pretty sure she managed it with that stunt. “Kate.” It’s a snarl. Low and angry, it vibrated with rage. Which triggered her fight flight response and she wanted nothing more than to run... but she held her ground, gritting her teeth. She swallowed her fear like a bitter pill and spared a thought for the aliens who stood in front of Shiro in the arena. Did they whisper a prayer for mercy to their Gods? Had he looked at them the way he was looking at her?

Pidge felt the pulse through her connection to the Green Lion as the connection vanished and everything around them stopped. The ambient humming in the walls of the castle went silent.

“That was a lot more than I expected,” Pidge whispered to herself.

The passive magnetic soles of their boots activated, holding them down. Zero gravity tried to drag them up. They looked at each other until the lights flickered and died; their helmet lamps the last to go offline.

Pidge could hear Shiro breathing in the dark. Hunk too but he didn’t sound as panicked as their leader, his breathing wasn’t as rapid. She wondered if Shiro would've been alright if she hadn’t attacked him. If she hadn't disabled his arm right before the lights went out.

“Oh yeah, you fucked up, Pidge,” said Hunk, not an inch of nice guy in his voice. He sounded as pissed off as Shiro. Hunk never got pissed off at her, ever. And in her defence, he was standing there looking at the same data as her when it happened. He didn’t pick up on it until the last possible tick either.

When she'd had to activate one of her hidden weapons to try and stop the incursion.

She hoped she’d stopped it.

“How wide has this gone?” Shiro rasped from the darkness. “Did it reach the main deck? Medical? Pidge, how far?”

Matt. Fuck.

“I don’t know, I never tested it in the field?” The voice that replied to Shiro was tiny and wobbly. Smaller than an Altean mouse if an Altean mouse could talk. She was surprised to find it was hers. “It’s response was going to be proportionate to the threat.”

“That was a pretty big response,” murmured Hunk. He sounded impressed but in the dark she couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic and thus preening at her cleverness was out of the question, given the circumstances.

Trying her other gauntlet failed to bring up the system, it’d been reduced to another piece of armour.

“Did you hear that?” asked Shiro abruptly. He was close but low, near the wall if her memory served. 

“Let’s hope it's localised to this floor, Pidge. Matt will be okay with Coran and Keith looking after him,” said Hunk’s disembodied voice, even angry he was trying to comfort her. “Shiro, are you okay? I didn’t hear anything.”

Pidge swung her arms around until they connected with a body and Hunk grunted. He gave her a quick hug then released her with a sigh. A small sob escaped her, maybe he didn’t hate her if he could bear to hug her. She tried again and her fingers glanced off something else. An arm wrapped around her, like it was grabbing a lifeline, and dragged her closer. He was crouched near the wall where she'd suspected he'd be. “There you are,” she said gently. “Shiro, let me reboot your arm.” She groped up the length of his body until she felt metal under her fingers and traced the line of the prosthetic. Ragged breaths tickle her face and she reached up with her free hand to touch his cheek inside the helmet. He leaned into it, thankfully not gone full blown into a panic attack if he recognised her touch. She felt the terrible weight of responsibility begin to crush her. She’d hurt him. This was her fault. Sort of. She began the reset process. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see it straight away. It was a sneaky trick.” Pidge wanted to cry but she had to be strong like a clanmurel. For Matt. For Shiro. Maybe not for Hunk. He was already strong as a clanmurel.

“It’s not your fault, Pidge,” said Shiro, his voice was low and thick with anxiety. “Not your fault. It  _was_ a sneaky trick. Thanks for saving my arm.”

Hunk didn’t say anything.

Shiro jerked away from her, moving like he was searching for something.

“What?” she asked, her voice more calm than she felt. The lights hadn’t come back on and even to a sometime adult, the castle was terrifying in the dark.

“I keep hearing….” His arm lit up Galra purple and he groaned as it reconnected to his quintessence. He clasped it with his other hand, doubled over with pain.

It always appeared, to her, to be an uncomfortable process. There had to be a better way to do this. Several failed prosthesis stored in the medical bay spoke of failed attempts to find it though. Shiro’s arm might be Galra made and glitchy as hell but Haggar had created something that no one had been able to replicate. Yet.

It was another way she felt she’d failed him. Hunk felt the same way, they’d talked at length each time but it hadn’t made it any easier. It didn’t matter to either of them that Haggar was an alchemist druid genius. Pidge particularly, wanted to be better. She  _would_ be better. Even if it killed her.

Shiro started again, his head rotating to look around and up, her hand was still on his cheek, wet under her palm and she wasn’t sure if it was sweat or tears. But she heard it as well this time. Hunk was leaning down to check Shiro and he heard it too. This close, their helmets bumped against each other as they all glanced up, searching the darkness. Tapping. Sharp staccato raps against the walls, ceiling, and floor. It was hard to tell but it sounded like it came from just beyond the sparse light thrown out from Shiro’s arm.

It was more than a noise though. It was a  _presence_ , with weight and volume, and radiating-- would it be too simple to say  _evil_? Malevolence then.

She hadn’t stopped it. Something had got through.

“It was closer that time,” said Hunk, he held his hand out to Shiro, drawing him to his feet. Hunk didn’t look nervous exactly but his bayard formed up in his hand and took on the shape of the cannon. Pidge approved. The cannon was a good distance weapon that would give them some protection if they needed to move fast.

She pulled her remaining gauntlet off and fiddled with the device hidden within. A tick later an orange screen popped up, illuminating their faces. They shared the same expression, nothing had rattled them like this for a while and maybe that arrogance had come home to roost. Hunk’s arms encircled them, squeezing them close. Shiro shut his eyes and appeared to draw some strength from the hug, his breathing slowing.

“Okay.” Pidge pulled the gauntlet back on and tried to reconnect to the castle. The screen remained blank. The Altean symbol for buffering blinked in the top left corner. She huffed, irritated, and flicked her fingers, sharing the blank screen with Shiro and Hunk. Now they had a basic light.

“Let's move,” suggested Shiro. He turned but another series of sharp taps and clicks surrounded them. The mysterious something was right in front of him.

Pidge grabbed Shiro before it could take him. She felt a breeze as it reached towards them. It had multiple limbs and it was big. She spun Shiro and pushed him out of the way and ahead of her in the opposite direction, joking, “Not that way, boss!” Her voice shook and the tremor to her words gave her a slightly unhinged tone.

Hunk shot her a concerned look and she shrugged off. If Shiro caught the slip, he didn’t mention it. Hunk backed up awkwardly, keeping pace, and fired at the creature behind them as they searched for somewhere to escape to, to hunker down. Tiny terrifying snatches of it appeared in each bolt of energy. It clicked at Hunk, like an angry wind chime. The sound vibrated through Pidge’s bones. Hunk’s shots only appeared to piss it off and it began to pursue them with more determination, each tap sounded like a hammer fall now.

“Hunk, we need to go,” ordered Shiro, grabbing the younger paladin by the arm and dragging him along. They didn’t talk about Hunk using his cannon again. In these conditions, he was damaging the castle with no promise of any accuracy or effectiveness against the enemy. He dismissed the bayard and turned, running with them.

In the heat of the moment, they’d forgotten that the opposite direction, the direction they were running in, was straight towards her discarded gauntlet and the data cubes.

 

 

At first, it felt like snow, the delicate snowflakes that had melted on her skin when she was a child. It’d made her cry, an unwelcome sensation. Her first and only experience of snow on Earth at an ice world theme park. Matt had pulled her under his hooded sweatshirt, protecting her.

This wasn't quite the same, they floated in the air but they weren't snowflakes. Like giant dandelion seeds, they were searching for somewhere to land. Pidge waved one off and it stuck to her gloved fingers. It was translucent, shimmering as it reflected back the glow from her light. Then more attached to her and formed up with the first in a thin but unbreakable crystalline strand. Shaking her hand, she tried to dislodge the strand but it held on and crawled up her hand to wrap around her wrist, prying her armour up and slipping beneath. She yelped and shook her hand more energetically.

She felt it squirm under the gauntlet with intelligent purpose, heading toward her light. The screen flickered and died, and without even that small light she lost her footing and fell.

Something swooped in close and she gasped, curling up to protect herself.

Shiro pulled her back to her feet and drew her in close to his side. Hunk was panting like a bellows behind her. They were lost, so lost. What had she said about blindfolds earlier? Shiro ran close to the wall. It was a good plan; if they were cornered they had something had their backs. His prosthetic traced along the wall in a shower of purple sparks that reflected off a structure in front of them.

It hadn’t been there earlier….

“Shiro!” She tried to put the brakes on but Shiro was caught in it first.

Crystal vines lit with purple light, wrapped around most of his limbs instantly, immobilising him.  The light on his gauntlet disappeared as he shoved her away with his Galra arm. She slid across the floor on her butt, and God she was going to feel that tomorrow. A crystal vine whipped towards her, like those that were slowly cocooning Shiro, latched onto her left leg and dragged her back. Just beyond her reach, Hunk let out a strangled shout. He was only a few feet away but it might as well be a mile. The orange light attached to his gauntlet vanished, and with it, her view of Hunk.

The only light left was from Shiro’s arm.

“Hunk! Shiro!” she cried out, struggling but she was held fast. Calling her bayard to hand, she slashed at the vines holding her. They reformed faster than she could cut through them and she forced herself to let the bayard go offline when the strands attempted to pry it from her grasp. They tug at her helmet instead, dragging it off her head.

Shiro groaned in pain, and Pidge saw his arm flare and go dark, briefly there was enough light to see his helmet was missing like hers. He bit off a scream and she felt something in her chest flutter uncomfortably at the sound. Then he screamed again and it didn't end. Full of pain and despair, she’s never heard him,  _anyone_ , scream like that. Not even when Sendak was torturing him all those years ago, when it had been pain, plain and simple agony. If there was such a thing.

This was something else. 

Hunk shouted and Pidge could hear him trying to get free. His angry struggles diminished to a breathless gasp and she felt the web tighten.

The vines started cocooning her. "Hunk?” she quailed, biting her lip desperately as she waited for him to answer.

“It-It’s okay, Pidge. I got wrapped up more. It doesn't seem to like us fighting back.” He didn’t sound okay though, anymore than Shiro sounded okay.

The cocoon began to cover her face and Pidge trembled. She had been rendered useless, unable to do anything while Shiro screamed and Hunk suffocated. She  _wanted_  to fight but something began to prick at the edge of her mind.

Close to her, Shiro stopped screaming and fell into whimpers that sounded more like a wounded animal than a human being.

Her mind was wrapped in a cocoon as thick as the one holding her body prisoner. It had been sapping her of energy the entire time. She couldn't fight anymore if she tried and she was too tired to try. Her eyes flutter closed to the sound of Shiro's soft sobs.

 

 

She wasn’t in the Castle of Lions anymore. Voices swelled to a deafening roar and the sharp smell of blood and sweat pervaded the air. Garish banners hung above the faceless crowd. 

Pidge recognised it from the descriptions of many prisoners they’d rescued. From her brother when he got spectacularly drunk and told her everything. From the brief moment when Shiro recovered a memory during one of their bonding sessions before stifling it from the younger paladins.

In her hand was a sword, Galra by design, blood dripped down the sharpened edge to pool on the sandy floor. Her palm sweated and she gripped the sword's hilt tighter.

She was in a Galra arena. If the banners were to be believed, it was the arena at Central Command.

_Zarkon’s_ arena.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbetaed again I'm sorry. I can't look at it anymore, I've read and re-read it so many time, I hope that the mistakes are few.
> 
> So in hindsight I should've written this as a chapter fic but dur, nope, had to make all of our lives harder by doing it as a series. Subscribe to the entire series if you want to follow it more easily, sorry about that!
> 
> EDIT: You probably noticed I changed this to a chapter fic. I couldn't deal with it anymore, this is so much better for the reader and for me.
> 
> I'm genuinely sorry it took so long to release Cross Your Fingers. You have like another ten chapters to go if that helps you decide whether to stick with me. You'll have white hair by the end, I swear. If you stuck around for this part and you leave me here, thanks for reading!
> 
> Comments keep me going when my anxiety tells me I'm a fool and no one is reading my stories, short or long, a single <3 is so lovely too, I know what it's like to be shy and find commenting stressful. Kudos are also amazeballs. I love it all! Even the long silences. Wait, not that last one.
> 
> Come chat to me @crazywordsmustache on tumblr but please, I'm begging, no hate and no discourse. I'm too tired.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been proofing this for too long now. I need to just post it and suffer the blow back if it sucks. Cheers!


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